Globetrotting with third-world passport since 2006.

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Big Plans Take Time

Yesterday, I walked home from work and I passed by an advertising by DBS about retirement. It was so coincidental because I was just talking about planning my retirement with my colleagues.

The ads said: “BIG PLANS TAKE TIME”

That’s right. I’ve spent my whole life planning stuffs, I just love planning and making goals. I had a new goal that day, I want to retire when I turn 55. I already started plotting my retirement plans in my head, but this post is not about my retirement plan (we can talk about it next time), it is about big plan. Specifically, the biggest, most epic trip I’ll ever have (so far). This is the biggest thing we’ve (Bandi and I) ever planned in our life, it’s even bigger than our wedding! We planned our wedding for a year. This… we’ve been planning since 2016! And after 22 months planning, the most epic road trip of our life is finally happening!

The beginning

By now you should’ve known how much I love road trip. Our Pacific Coast road trip in NSW, Australia back in 2015 was the beginning of our love affair with road trip. I also love hiking, but sometimes I found it too troublesome to bring hiking gear, unless… you’re driving a car. Bingo! Road trip and hiking are match made in heaven, just like me and Bandi. Lol.

We narrowed down countries which would be great to be explored by car: Australia (of course), New Zealand (in our future plan, of course), Scotland, US and Canada. Bandi has always wanted to show me US so in August 2016 we started creating a plan for our epic American Road trip. I still remember we were sitting in Starbucks and we agreed to quit both of our jobs and spend at least 3 months in the US, in a van to be exact. (this photo of my soc-med timeline marks the beginning of the plan!) Circumstances then started to happen, I moved to Facebook, it got delayed again and then we planned it after the facebook life but then I got even a better gig. So then we realized, we should compromise. We then shortened the trip to a month plus and not both of us should quit the job.

That screenshot from a socmed post 2 years ago.

In one fateful day, in the middle of reality, we bought a ticket to San Francisco. We decided to figure things out one step at a time. But the ticket was bought. So we’re going!

The route

The route planning was crazy! It took months for us to do a lot of reading and go through hundreds of arguments before we finalized it! It was so difficult to prioritize and create a perfect map for our North American Trip. I call it North America because it’ll involve both US and Canada! Yes! It’s been a dream of mine to visit Banff, and since we’ll be in the US, of course we should spare time enrouting to Banff!

There are so many national parks I want to see but so little time we have, and the longer we’re there, the more expensive it is. Our goal is to find the most efficient route, with the most National Parks covered, with the cheapest accommodation possible.

At first we wanted to cut short some of the road trips and save money on the drop-off fee. For those who are not familiar, drop off fee is a fee payable to the car rental when you pick up and drop off the car from and to different states. But at the end, after calculating and recalculating, we’d save more money by doing full East coast to West coast road trip. One drop off fee and that’s it. It costed US$550 for the drop fee only and I could faint just to think about the money, but well, we’re doing it.

The biggest chunk of the trip will be on the road of course, but we did take some flights to and from Canada. We’re going in to Calgary, Canada from SF and fly further to Boston to start our US road trip which eventually will end back to the west coast, in LA.

So to summarize, Our route is to start in West Coast, move up to Alberta, Canada, then fly to East coast, so east we’ll start from Maine! We took bus from Boston to New York and to DC, then car all the way to Los Angeles, enrouting to Texas in the middle. Crazy, huh?

The budget

This is by far the most expensive trip we’ve ever had (and I guess we’ll ever have). First of all, US is far from Singapore; the flight itself is expensive. Thankfully we get a good deal (as always). Second of all, the length of the trip is crazy, so the cost multiplies so much. Third of all, we want to visit Banff, so another whopping budget for flights, Canadian Visa and expensive Banff Accommodation.

Just like I mentioned, we’ve been planning for this trip since 2016, so we have some savings for the trip specifically and thankfully the spending were staggered in months (almost a year) from the time we purchased our flight, applying US visa, booking airbnb, booking cars, buying national park pass, to the other tiny details like purchasing a good angle-wide lens or renewing International Driving License. Overall, the budget turns out to be more expensive than our wedding. I’m serious. But our wedding was a simple one anyway, so not a very good comparison. My point is… this is huge. This is the biggest thing we’ve ever invested in in our life. If you happen to plan similar trip like ours, we’d love to share out itinerary! :)

The execution

They said good things happen to those who wait. Well, we’ve been waiting (and plotting) for 22 months, and here it comes. It’s finally happening. We’re only bringing one 35L backpack each consist only essentials. On moments like this, I always be reminded how stuffs are overrated, and how we should never be attached to stuffs. Because really, at the end of the day, I won’t be needing 95% of the stuffs I own. All I want in life is making memories, connections, achievements, and none of them can be tangibly measured.

People are questioning, what do you bring for a month trip?

I answer the same whether it’s for 1 month, 2 months, 2 weeks or 1 week… I pack 5 days’ worth of clothes. I always do, unless I go for weekend trip, then pack for 2 days’ worth of clothes, duh.

For toiletries, I bring only tiny bottles of essentials. And if shampoos or soaps are running out, we can always buy there. No sweat.

It seems very light now, isn’t it?

One important thing to prepare is driver’s license. Both Bandi and I will be driving so both of us need to have our international Driver’s license ready. Making international driver’s license is a breeze, nothing to worry about! I made mine in Jakarta, Indonesia and Bandi made it in Singapore (coz he has Singapore Driver’s license).

The Day

We’re leaving in 2 days! I hope I’ll some time to blog during my trip, coz otherwise it’ll take forever to tell all the stories when I’m back. But at least I’ll keep my instagram posted! I still remember sharing my excitement and happiness with all of you during our epic Europetrip, so now I’m doing the same, hoping to always inspire and ignite incredible adventures. Follow this epic trip on @baytravels ! Leave a comment below to send some love! :)